Keeping the party together.

[Dwarmaj]

Just curious if it's a problem in other games. We have about 8 players in the group I play with, with 3-4 that play a bit more than the rest. The ones that play more have higher level characters and always seem to do more of the fighting/spell casting.

We've tried bumping the lower level characters up to within a level or two of the other characters, but this isn't as much fun for them since they aren't actually playing their character through the levels.

When a new player joins, what level do you make them in relation to the party?

Thanks,
Dwarmaj

 

[Artoomis]

There are several ways you can handle this, but it sounds like your group wants to play them through the levels.

That's fine - just be sure to adjust the way you award experience so that the lower level characters can evenually catch up with the more experienced ones. I think FR has a system for this.

Bascially, don't use average level for experience, instead figure it based upon each character's level. A lower level character would get a high reward for fighting a tough EL, while a higher level character would only get a small reward for fighting the same not-so-tough (relatively) EL.

Make sense?

 

[Ran]

Well, for new players I usually use the level of the lowest party member, since for you that is pretty much a problem, consider making it between the ones that go and the ones that don't.

I prefer to put new people on the same levelk because I played games where I entered two, three, even 5 levels lower, and believe me, it is nut fun, you enjoy but it is very annoying to be just another one there, unable to survive and fight properly... prefer to give those that cannot be blamed for their level, the same level of the party...

 

[demon_jr]

Well, I can only speak from experience.

When I first joined the gaming group I was in, I started at the starting level of the campaign, a 2nd Edition game at the time, which was 5th level. The majority of the group were higher levels around 9th-10th if I remember correctly.

After the initial character creation, any subsequent character that was introduced into the game starts of 2 levels lower than lowest party member. It seems to work fine so far.

 

[Jaxom]

I just got done running an adventure for a group of split levels. I used the Forgotten Realms system when awarding experience for each encounter. In the group I have 8 players, when they all show up, and their levels are 15th to 17th level.

The following example of experience shares is for a CR 17 encounter with the group mentioned above when all players are present and using the DMG chart on page 166 to get the experience award for the challenge rating.

Ex:
15th level = 9,000 divided by 8 players = 1,125 to each 15th level character
16th level = 7,200 divided by 8 players = 900 to each 16th level character
17th level = 5,100 divided by 8 players = 638 to each 17th level character

This lets the lower level characters advance at a faster pace for their participation in the encounter.

Hint: give players their experience on paper, the players of the higher level characters get a little discouraged when they hear someone got twice as much experience. But IMO this shows the inherent danger to the lower level characters in the encounter.

Also if one of the players didn't show for the above encounter, the experience would be divided by 7 and each character would aquire a higher share of experience for the encounter.

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Well, I can only speak from experience.

When I first joined the gaming group I was in, I started at the starting level of the campaign, a 2nd Edition game at the time, which was 5th level. The majority of the group were higher levels around 9th-10th if I remember correctly.

After the initial character creation, any subsequent character that was introduced into the game starts of 2 levels lower than lowest party member. It seems to work fine so far.

The 1e/2e xp scale allowed lower level characters to catch up very quickly. That is no longer true in vanilla 3e.

 

[Darklone]

Originally posted by Ridley's Cohort The 1e/2e xp scale allowed lower level characters to catch up very quickly. That is no longer true in vanilla 3e.

Depends how you distribute XPs. See FR optional rules above.

 

[IceBear]

Hehehehe - I didn't realize that this was an optional rule in FR as it was how I had decided to handle this situation

IceBear

 

[vic20]

When a new player joins, what level do you make them in relation to the party?

Thanks,
Dwarmaj

I figure the average party level. Most recently, this worked out to being 7.2. A new character comes in at one level below this, 6.2. In other words, they will be sixth level, 20% of the way towards 7th in terms of starting gold and XP. This allows there to be a sense of seniority among those that have been part of the group longer.

 

[the Jester]

I start new characters off at two levels lower than the party average. Sometimes this still ends up being higher than some of the lower-level party members, but that's rare. (It would happen in my campaign right now- the group ranges from 10th to 16th, averaged out to 13th; so a new pc would be 11th.)

I also use the FR system for monster xp, but I award rp xp too, which is based on the character level of the pc. I halve the xp for monsters and traps so advancement isn't even faster than in straight 3e.